Table-Talk William Hazlitt (epub e ink reader txt) 📖

wager, as whether Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary was originally published in quarto or folio. The confident assertions, the cautious overtures, the length of time demanded to ascertain the fact, the precise terms of the forfeit, the provisos for getting out of paying it at last, lead to a long and inextricable discussion. George Kirkpatrick was, however, so convinced in his own mind that the Mourning Bride was written by Shakespeare, that he ran headlong into the snare: the bet was decided, and the punch was drunk. He has skill in numbers, and seldom exceeds his sevenpence.⁠—He had a brother once, no Michael Cassio, no great arithmetician. Roger Kirkpatrick was a rare fellow, of the driest humour, and the nicest tact, of infinite sleights and evasions, of a picked phraseology, and the very soul of mimicry. I fancy I have some insight into physiognomy myself, but he could often expound to me at a single glance the characters of those of my acquaintance that I had been most at fault about. The account as it was cast up and balanced between us was not always very favourable. How finely, how truly, how gaily he took off the company at the Southampton! Poor and faint are my sketches compared to his! It was like looking into a camera obscura⁠—you saw faces shining and speaking⁠—the smoke curled, the lights dazzled, the oak wainscotting took a higher polish⁠—there was old Sarratt, tall and gaunt, with his couplet from Pope and case at Nisi Prius, Mounsey eyeing the ventilator and lying perdu for a moral, and Hume and Ayrton taking another friendly finishing glass!⁠—These and many more windfalls of character he gave us in thought, word, and action. I remember his once describing three different persons together to myself and Martin Burney, viz. the manager of a country theatre, a tragic and a comic performer, till we were ready to tumble on the floor with laughing at the oddity of their humours, and at Roger’s extraordinary powers of ventriloquism, bodily and mental; and Burney said (such was the vividness of the scene) that when he awoke the next morning, he wondered what three amusing characters he had been in company with the evening before. Oh! it was a rich treat to see him describe Mudford, him of the Courier, the Contemplative Man, who wrote an answer to Coelebs, coming into a room, folding up his greatcoat, taking out a little pocket volume, laying it down to think, rubbing the calf of his leg with grave self-complacency, and starting out of his reverie when spoken to with an inimitable vapid exclamation of “Eh!” Mudford is like a man made of fleecy hosiery: Roger was lank and lean “as is the ribbed sea-sand.” Yet he seemed the very man he represented, as fat, pert, and dull as it was possible to be. I have not seen him of late:⁠—

“For Kais is fled, and our tents are forlorn.”

But I thought of him the other day, when the news of the death of Bonaparte came, whom we both loved for precisely contrary reasons, he for putting down the rabble of the people, and I because he had put down the rabble of kings. Perhaps this event may rouse him from his lurking-place, where he lies like Reynard, “with head declined, in feigned slumbers!”62

I had almost forgotten the Southampton Tavern. We for some time took C⁠⸺ for a lawyer, from a certain arguteness of voice and slenderness of neck, and from his having a quibble and a laugh at himself always ready. On inquiry, however, he was found to be a patent-medicine seller, and having leisure in his apprenticeship, and a forwardness of parts, he had taken to study Blackstone and the Statutes at Large. On appealing to Mounsey for his opinion on this matter, he observed pithily, “I don’t like so much law: the gentlemen here seem fond of law, but I have law enough at chambers.” One sees a great deal of the humours and tempers of men in a place of this sort, and may almost gather their opinions from their characters. There is C⁠⸺, a fellow that is always in the wrong⁠—who puts might for right on all occasions⁠—a Tory in grain⁠—who has no one idea but what has been instilled into him by custom and authority⁠—an everlasting babbler on the stronger side of the question⁠—querulous and dictatorial, and with a peevish whine in his voice like a beaten schoolboy. He is a great advocate for the Bourbons and for the national debt. The former he affirms to be the choice of the French people, and the latter he insists is necessary to the salvation of these kingdoms. This last point a little inoffensive gentleman among us, of a saturnine aspect but simple conceptions, cannot comprehend. “I will tell you, sir⁠—I will make my propositions so clear that you will be convinced of the truth of my observation in a moment. Consider, sir, the number of trades that would be thrown out of employ if it were done away with: what would become of the porcelain manufacture without it?” Any stranger to overhear one of these debates would swear that the English as a nation are bad logicians. Mood and figure are unknown to them. They do not argue by the book. They arrive at conclusions through the force of prejudice, and on the principles of contradiction. Mr. C⁠⸺ having thus triumphed in argument, offers a flower to the notice of the company as a specimen of his flower-garden, a curious exotic, nothing like it to be found in this kingdom; talks of his carnations, of his country-house, and old English hospitality, but never invites any of his friends to come down and take their Sunday’s dinner with him. He is mean and ostentatious at the same time, insolent and servile, does not know whether to treat those he converses with as if they were his porters or